Madness: American Satirist C.J. Hopkins Sentenced in German Speech Case

Just when you may have thought things couldn’t get any crazier: American playwright and humorist C.J. Hopkins, profiled in this space on numerous occasions, has been sent a “punishment order” by a German judge, offering him a Sophie’s Choice of 60 days in jail or 3,600 euros.

His crime? Essentially, insulting the German health minister in a tweet, and using a scarcely-visible image of a Swastika on a mask in a book critical of the global pandemic response, The Rise of the New Normal Reich. He was first accused of this “crime” in June, shortly after Roger Waters was placed under investigation for wearing his clearly satirical “Pink” costume in a stage performance in Berlin. As I wrote when C.J. was charged weeks later, authorities claim that through the use of the mask image, C.J. was “disseminating propaganda, the contents of which are intended to further the aims of a former National Socialist organization.”

The judge in C.J.’s case has already heard free-speech argumentation from his lawyer, and this technically being a non-jury misdemeanor offense, has already ruled against those arguments. C.J. will apparently have a chance to argue for mitigation, but the decree has already been handed down:

Here is the would-be offending image:

As noted previously, here are some images currently on sale in Germany that have not been made the subjects of hate speech prosecutions:

No amount of drugs exist that if consumed would allow a rational person to conclude that the writing of C.J. Hopkins furthers “the aims of a former National Socialist Organization.” Agree with him or not, and I increasingly do, he used his imagery to compare the sweeping declarations of emergency power that were common around the world during the pandemic (and were particularly authoritarian in Germany) to Nazi tactics. He compared, for instance, the 2020 “Infection Protection Act” to the “Enabling Act of 1933,” which announced that to “remedy the distress of the people,” the “laws enacted by the government of the Reich may deviate from the constitution.”

C.J.’s real offense seems to be a response to a tweet by Die Welt, quoting German health minister Karl Lauterbach. Portrayed in full Sprockets–style smart-glasses glory, Lauterbach is shown saying, “The masks always send out a signal”:

C.J. retweeted the quote, adding the image from his book cover. That’s it, that’s the offense. No matter how you feel about that exchange, that is not “intended to further the aims of a former National Socialist organization.” That is using the negative connotations of Nazism to criticize a currently serving government official.

I defy any American reporter to justify incarceration for this type of criticism of a still-serving politician. We’d have to build a separate Supermax just for people who used Hitler analogies during the Trump years, or published gleeful headlines like, “Lawsuit Reveals Trump Can’t Stand Being Compared to Hitler.”

The use of speech laws in this way recalls the way drug laws are applied in the U.S. We let stockbrokers blow as much coke as they want, out of the navels of exotic dancers if they like, but make possession a real crime in other contexts, effectively giving authorities a way to use an “offense” committed by many to selectively criminalize membership in certain groups, residency in certain neighborhoods, etc. As C.J. points out, the real problem is not so much with his case (although he’s certainly worried), but the now-open way in which such laws are being applied, from the prosecution of Julian Assange to the suppression of Covid speech and even the extra counts addressing “false statements” in tweets by Donald Trump.

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